More and more equipment manufacturers are contracting with customers for maintenance planning (MP) of their equipment; this maintenance being either corrective, preventive or predictive. Due to the costs involved, customers are increasingly asking for a business case justifying the maintenance plan. This paper describes a study conducted with the MATISA Company, a track construction and renewal train manufacturer, and the business case for the equipment MP put forward to a customer. The concept developed consists of a method enabling the Company to provide a systematic explanation of the adopted maintenance strategy based on a joint cost-availability analysis regarding the ‘critical’ components. We begin by presenting MATISA practice, followed by a brief review of equipment maintenance principles. We then present the MATISA business case, and conclude with some remarks about the prospects for the method adopted and its generalizability from this experimental study